Click image for a gallery of race photos from the '08 12 Hours of Sebring
The 2008 running of the 12 Hours of Sebring took place yesterday, officially kicking off the sports car racing season. In case you recorded the race and haven't gotten around to watching it yet, we've placed the recap after the jump. Suffice to say, it looks like this year's ALMS and Le Mans competition should be both exciting and unpredictable.
Follow the jump for the full Sebring rundown.
[Source: ALMS]
Peugeot and Audi may have traded top times throughout the week leading up to the 12 Hours of Sebring, but in the end, reliability and not speed won the race. For the first time since 1988, Porsche grabbed the overall win at Sebring International Raceway. Due to extensive mechanical issues with the P1 frontrunners, the P2 class took over the show, initially sweeping the podium. Penske Racing took first place overall with the #7 Porsche RS Sypder piloted by Timo Bernhard, Romain Dumas and Emmanuel Collard. Lowe's Fernandez Racing, with its Acura ARX-01b driven by Adrian Fernandez and Luis Diaz, came in less than 13 seconds later. The Dyson Racing Porsche RS Spyder of Butch Leitzinger, Marino Franchitti and Andy Lally took third overall. The fourth place competitor was also the last car on the lead lap and the top P1 finisher. The Audi R10 driven by Rinaldo Capello, Tom Kristensen and Allan McNish took that honor. Unfortunately for Fernandez Racing, its second-place finish was thrown out after the car failed a post-race inspection. The official results now put Penske in first overall, with Dyson and Audi elevated to second and third respectively.
Action in the GT classes saw the GT1 title once again going to a Corvette Racing C6R. The win gave Johnny O'Connell his seventh class victory, making him the winningest driver in the event's history. His co-drivers, Jan Magnussen and Ron Fellows, aided him in the conquest. Flying Lizard Motorsports gave Porsche its second win of the day by securing the GT2 victory. Jörg Bergmeister, Wolf Henzler and Marc Lieb were at the helm.
And now we look forward to the regular ALMS schedule and, of course, Le Mans, which will once again pit Audi against Peugeot and reignite the Corvette/Aston Martin rivalry as the yellow Vettes look to take back the Le Mans GT1 title from the Gulf-liveried Astons. It should be fun.
[Source: ALMS]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Nik @ Mar 16th 2008 4:51PM
Porsche FTW
Luis @ Mar 16th 2008 5:16PM
Glad to see Porsche win after 20 years...rough one for Peugot.
Luis @ Mar 16th 2008 5:23PM
Oh, and MJ, it's not a spoiler unless it PRECEDES an event, right?
Allan @ Mar 16th 2008 6:15PM
But it's a spoiler to those that may have recorded it and haven't watched it. That's what he's referring to, I think.
Merritt Johnson @ Mar 16th 2008 10:36PM
People always seem to complain if race results get posted in the post subject, even if it aired live. Not that it isn't in the headline anywhere else one looks...
why not the LS2LS7? @ Mar 17th 2008 11:40AM
Thank you autoblog!
I was unable to watch the race live. I watched it last night from my PVR. I avoided all auto-related sites between the start of the race and when I saw the end on PVR.
But in the past, I have had my race spoiled simply by weblogs, inc,. posting the titles of their results articles and having them show up on other sites (the top 3 articles on autoblog show up at the bottom of joystiq). So yeah, it's a good thing that autoblog didn't put the results in their article title.
pedantic @ Mar 16th 2008 5:35PM
Good to see the Porsche RS Spyder finally win at Sebring, but Penske Racing is not going to Le Mans this year. My guess is Dyson Racing will not go either. That means no Porsche RS Spyders on the Circuit de la Sarthe.
A little sad to see the Acura/Fernandez Racing entry disqualified. Damage during the race caused them to fail inspection, and not because of cheating on their part.
Looking towards this year's ALMS season, P1 and GT1 seem very boring. The Porsche vs Acura battle in P2 looks interesting. Both of them will be battling for the overall win on nearly all the races. The Porsche vs Ferrari battle on GT2 seems to be taken up a notch with the off season development in the new 997 GT2 RSR. They finally seem to be able to compete with the Ferrari F430 GT.
Nik @ Mar 16th 2008 8:28PM
Porsche's GT2 Class racer is actually the 997 GT3 RSR
Kiiks @ Mar 16th 2008 10:18PM
According to SA's "Official" entry list, there are going to be two RS Spyders at the 24.
#31 Team Essex
#34 Van Merksteijn Motorsport
I better not see either of these win overall.
The Penguin @ Mar 17th 2008 12:54AM
It is too late for Dyson, even if they wanted to get into the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2008, if they want to go they will have to wait until 2009. And the RS Spyders that are going, have no chance at an overall win. They will have to have smaller fuel tanks, and more weight than the ALMS RS Spyders have to run. Also, if you have watched an ALMS race, you will notice that the RS Spyders can't run with the Audi's on the long staits, something that Le Mans has a lot of.
Kiiks @ Mar 17th 2008 1:09AM
That's right, 24hLM will run the full 2008 ACO LMP rules. I'm curious to see how the Porsches stack up against the LMS P2 regulars at Sarthe.
I somehow see Audi and Pug being the only viable candidates for the overall, though I'd love to see Creation Autosportif take it from both.
Luis @ Mar 16th 2008 8:46PM
Then you people need to get on the ball!...just kidding, I get your point.
Carlos @ Mar 16th 2008 8:55PM
I think it's a little on the retarded side to have a lower class car actually take the over all win over the "faster" cars. I think ALMS gimped the Audis too much and in a way hurt the over all balance of the system.
Kiiks @ Mar 16th 2008 10:35PM
Yeah, that's been a constant gripe from Audi to the governing body. The ACO actually restructured the classes to be more divided but the ALMS chose not to comply.
However - The lead R10 spent 10 minutes in the pits for repairs and missed the overall victory by 67 seconds. Had they a flawless run, they would have been ahead by several laps. Noidor might have a good point too, but from what I read in Audi's press release, both suspension and brake rotor replacements were unforseen failures and probably not due to the changes they made in the car this year. (If it was, we'd have heard Audi bitching about it)
why not the LS2LS7? @ Mar 17th 2008 11:54AM
The Diesels still have a ton more energy in their fuel tank, a FAR larger restrictor and more turbo boost than gas cars get. They still have ridiculous unfair advantages, just not as much as before.
ACO does agree with you about the classes, but IMSA doesn't. The problem is that ACO has completely rigged their rules to make LMP1 gas cars uncompetitive with the Diesels. This, combined with the fact that there are no LMP1-class Diesel engines available to privateers means only 2 teams can compete for the overall win (which is better than 2 years ago). With no competition in LMP1, IMSA elevated LMP2 to provide competition for the overall win.
ACO's rules are okay for Le Mans. Le Mans is a single event that is rather popular and is very historic. Teams will show up no matter what happens, because they can cover their expenses for a single race and with the higher ad rates at Le Mans. But ALMS frequently has a car count problem, because running a longer series with fewer viewers is more difficult to cover your costs. If ALMS ran under ACO rules, it likely wouldn't exist for long.
In the end, I know the Diesels are large and heavy and pay the price in very tight corners (which Sebring doesn't have) and rough pavement (which Sebring has a lot of). I don't have any difficulty with a smaller, lighter car winning a race on merit over a boat whose main selling point is it is allowed to run a motor that is much more powerful than is allowed to by run by other homologation rules. The R8 was a huge advance in racing technology, the R10 is just a wonder of winning the war to get the rules changed in your favor.
Noidor @ Mar 16th 2008 9:19PM
Yes, and this attempt by ALMS to cripple Audi is causing them to push the envelope and thus compromise reliability.
why not the LS2LS7? @ Mar 17th 2008 11:55AM
Yeah, it's the ACO's fault that Audi designed brake rotors to run 24 hours and they didn't make 10.
spdracerut @ Mar 16th 2008 11:34PM
The P1 cars were faster than the P2 cars.... I think 1:46 vs. 1:49. But I agree that there should be a greater differential in speed.
rusty @ Mar 16th 2008 11:47PM
I would rather see them slow Audi down and make 1 class of Prototypes. It would be more fun to watch.
The diesels are interesting to watch on their own. They drive by at a volume lower than a lot of street cars at full throttle. You can hear the brakes and tires around corners if no other cars are around. Every other car SCREAMS.
why not the LS2LS7? @ Mar 17th 2008 11:58AM
The quietness comes from the homologation rules. If any other car had its own private, very powerful homologation class, it could if it wanted put on power-robbing things like mufflers and still win the race.
What I'm saying is if you want quiet cars, you can make the gas cars quiet too with a simple rules adjustment.
But personally, I prefer the loud cars in general. I still miss the Panoz LMP-1 for its wonderful exhaust sound.